Service Academies: Hilton on the Hudson

Under those grim stone turrets at
West Point, buttoned-up, close-cropped cadets still "hup, two, three,
four" in precision parades. Unchanged in 30 years are the slate-grey
cadet uniforms, and it is still forbidden for a cadet to hold a girl's
hand when he walks her on campus. But beneath the surface sameness, the
Point within the past five years has undergone a drastic, evolutionary
change to match the new ways of what its teachers like to call "the
profession of arms." Harsh hazing and pointless indignities have given
way to a more mature approach to discipline based on respect for...